Policemen in uniform, workers on Hobart's docks, children holding a pet cat. These are just a few of the shots of real life in Hobart, captured in black and white on glass plates from the 1800s and early 1900s.

The Tasmanian Archive and Heritage Office has restored and digitised 2,000 glass plate photographs that show us Hobart and Tasmania's past.

"We were very lucky," says Caroline Homer, Manager of Reference Service Delivery at LINC Tasmania.

"About 30 years ago a gentleman called Ernst Roy Pretyman gave them to the state archives...he was a collector and an amateur historian.

"He collected these glass plates from all over the place, auctions, he acquired them in different ways and then gave them to the state archives."

The photos are mostly of Hobart, but there are scenes from other areas of Tasmania, such as an army camp at Ross, a horse drawn coach in Huonville and the bidge in St Helens.

The archive staff has picked up on the details captured in the glass and zoomed in on some to get a better look at the clothes, shop signs and other details of every-day life from the 19th and early 20th century.

So far about 1,000 of the photos are available on the LINC Tasmania website, with the other 1,000 in the process of being uploaded to give everyone access to the photo resources.

Selected photos have been added to flickr by the Archive Office as well, giving smaller snapshots of life of generations past.